


Ten Simple Rules

by vogue91



Category: Merlin (TV)
Genre: F/M, Introspection, Rules
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-28
Updated: 2018-02-28
Packaged: 2019-03-25 03:04:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,205
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13825134
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/vogue91/pseuds/vogue91
Summary: Every knight had his rules. I was no exception. I had my loyal precepts, gathered during the years, the then regulations that I would’ve used to make a dream come true, to become what I have always desired to be. A man worth of being called such.





	Ten Simple Rules

Every knight had his rules. I was no exception. I had my loyal precepts, gathered during the years, the then regulations that I would’ve used to make a dream come true, to become what I have always desired to be. A man worth of being called such.

 

_First rule. Never turn your back to the enemy._

I always fought with the fear of being attacked from behind, as if any moment death could come, with its stealth steps, ready to take me. Yet, against all odds, it had never happened; my body still wandered the forests, drawing the sword any time necessary, followed by a wheezing soul that realized perfectly the ruination being perpetrated under its own eyes. And so the arm kept sifting throats through with the blade and the brain refused to smell that rotten scent of death, a death that it knew was necessary. Always for a cause that seemed to be righteous.

 

_Second rule. Never give up._

I kept standing, against any human laws. When other people’s legs would’ve given out under the weight of the wounds, when any other truly living being would’ve greeted death as a blessing, I fought. I fought for a hope, I fought to be able to see the path in front of me, to walk it, to find my prize at the end of it. Yet I was all too aware of the fact that I had stolen that reward from myself time back, when I had left looking for a better Lancelot, a man that still had to prove to himself the truth of his being and the pureness of his soul. A man I still wasn’t sure I could be.

 

_Third rule. Pursue your goal._

Those eyes, darker than coal, persecuted my dreams like two dead start that for some reason I felt I had to follow. I wasn’t going to find peace until I was sure of her safety, until I knew Guinevere was fine, that she had carved out for herself a glimpse of happiness in this world that knows only pain and anguish. It was why I woke up every morning, why I kept fighting. Just to know that she was okay and that, perhaps, in her heart she still kept the memory of that unsuccessful knight, who kept her into his own.

 

_Fourth rule. Never look back._

Behind me there are only shadows of a recent past, still towering over me as if they were waiting for the right moment to strike. At night, during the troubled sleep, I saw all I had given up on, while my reasons started to waver as if they had no right to exist anymore. Fame and glory had grown far in the name of a loyalty in which I still foolishly believed.

But there was no room for memories, nor for regrets. I still had everything to prove to Arthur and Uther Pendragon, but most of all I had to prove to myself that I was worthy of becoming the man I truly desired to be.

 

_Fifth rule. Face your fear._

I wasn’t allowed to feel any fear, not even in my personal battle. I wouldn’t have needed any weapon but my courage, knowing that sword, shield and armour where but the façade of a man perfectly conscious of what he was going to face.

No stronger iron would’ve helped me if I had allowed myself to waver, even just for a moment, facing any enemy. I was the weapon, I was the solution to the enigma called fate, that had led me to unexplored lands, just to eradicate me with an unprecedented violence.

Prisoner of fatality.

 

_Sixth rule. Always be negligible._

I had never wanted to be a knight for that sense of self-importance that probably fills every human being. I wanted to be a knight for the worst reason: justice. I saw people weaker than me and I can almost annul my being. I became see-through, without a substance, almost a ghost for those surrounding me. The invisible hand guiding them to safety, bending their destinies to his will. I hardly receive any thanks, but that’s how I have saved myself from regret. I’m not better than them, I’m just better equipped to face an inevitable fall.

 

_Seventh rule. Fight with your head held high, keep it down when you obey._

I would’ve obeyed my lord the moment I would’ve had one. Until I was still free to spill gratuitous blood, I would’ve kept following my instinct’s voice, that whisper almost imperceptible that I always heard in my ears, and that kept telling me that a future still existed, existed for me. I obeyed that, day after day, battle after battle, just to justify an existence woven in the wefts of death itself. There was no other way to bend me, not the word of corrupted men nor the fear in my eyes. Nothing forbidding me to come back on that battlefield, that for a true knight is the whole world.

 

_Eight rule. You’re servant to your sword._

I remembered clearly the day Uther had rested the blade on my shoulder. I felt almost the strength of that sword ravaging through my limbs, touching a soul that I had almost deemed lost. Yet I should have understood I was alive, as I would’ve been until the weight of that sword would’ve made me feel its mark on me. Until I wouldn’t have had a concrete memory of having crossed the threshold of Camelot. Until I was aware of the fact that, even for a ridiculous amount of time, I had been a servant to my sword, a sword belonging only to the reign I would’ve defended.

For far too few moons.

 

_Ninth rule. Always go meet death._

It was my favourite rule. I remember I made it up the moment I had left Camelot, and I didn’t leave it with the honours I would’ve desired, but that I admitted I didn’t deserve.

Since that day, every morning I woke up without knowing if would’ve had the chance to go back to sleep at night. I sought death with so much expertise that I often wondered if I wasn’t actually craving it. Death would’ve redeemed me from the sin of wanting so intensely something that I could’ve never obtained. Death that would’ve brought me away from her face, that every night haunted my best dreams. Death that would have made me the ghost I already was.

 

_Tenth rule. Follow the rule, but think on your own._

My loyal rules, the ones that, perhaps, one day would’ve made me a knight of Camelot. Those I followed and at times contradicted. My the rules, my the exceptions.

Exceptions that were paving the road to an unsure destiny, but that I wanted to meet more than anything else. It had been exceptions to lead me into Camelot, to meet Arthur, Merlin, Gaius... to meet Guinevere. And if the prize for illegality was so alluring, those rules I had imposed to myself would’ve had the only fate to be constantly broken.

One by one, I would’ve had ten times that happiness that is due even to a man who’s nothing but the ghost of himself.


End file.
